Blog of Bermanism

I think I’m going to take a page out of the book of wwdn and start naming posts that have no real direction to them after the song that I’m listening to right now. Dancing with Kadafi is a great techno song by Infected Mushroom, an Israeli trance band. Check em’ out.

This past weekend was a good one. I went to a great workshop at UCSF on networking in science. It was offered by the Office of Career and Professional Development (the fact that UCSF has an entire office devoted to that is just plain awesome). When I signed up for the workshop, I figured I’d either get a great five hour-long nap or learn something really interesting. I ended up learning a lot about how developing professional networks with people in various places really helps to advance your career in science, in every aspect from getting a job to getting funding from the government. It also had the effect of motivating me to write a grant of my own in the next month. I’m excited about doing it and it will be great experience for me as I continue to learn how to be a successful scientist in this wacky world of ours.

Saturday night, we went to my cousin Devin’s house to celebrate her husband Adam’s birthday. The party was a wine tasting/fondue (which had loads of wine in it) party, which was a great idea (and a fantastic way to get everyone really blitzed on the cheap). Anyway, when we arrived, we were totally shocked and surprised to see my other cousin, Wendy, sitting on the couch. It was so good to see her, and it was a really great surprise!

While at this party, I met a guy named Steve, who is really good friends with Adam. After talking for a little while, my conversation naturally turned to my life as a rower (since it consumes the remaining percentage of my life that my job and wife don’t). I found out that he was once a rower in high school here in the bay area that used to compete (and still does) against our junior teams at Marin Rowing. He was very quick to want to give it a try again, so I gave him my contact information and he actually showed up this morning for practice. Hopefully, he ends up enjoying masters rowing as much as I do.

Sunday, I worked from home for a lot, trying like hell to get a hard drive fixed that has some really important data on it, and counting cells in some confocal images I took of Parkinson’s-like brains (work that will make your eyes bleed). After a few hours of this, Rachel and I headed to Golden Gate Park to take Izzy on a walk somewhere different. My goal was to check out the Japanese Tea Garden, since all of the cherry blossoms are blooming all over the city. Plus, neither Rachel or Izzy had ever walked around the park, so it seemed like a good idea. The weather wasn’t that great, but it wasn’t really raining, so we just kept walking. The park is beautifully laid out (if you’ve ever been there, you know what I’m talking about) with lots of really interesting gardens and areas that are a joy to walk around. I took some pictures that I’ll try to post to our photo journal later tonight. Anyway, we finally arrived at the tea garden, only to find that they don’t let dogs in. In fact, they don’t let dogs into most of the special gardens in the park. I am really confused by this since the gardens are all outside and only separated from the rest of the park by a fence. But, I suppose they have their reasons.

Afterwards, we picked up some Chinese food from Best Panda (one of the best Chinese restaurants I’ve ever been to, thanks Diane), went home, ate, and I counted more cells while we watched the Oscars on TV (I feel sorry for Eddie Murphy, who should have won. He was shafted big time). Overall, I think it was a great weekend. I’ve got a crazy busy week this week and then I’m headed off to Winter Park, Colorado on my annual ski trip with my ski buds. I’m so excited, the snow in Colorado is great (they got 21 inches this last week) and Winter Park is among my favorite places on the planet. Ok, I’m hungry now, so I’m heading out to eat.

Yes, I haven’t written in a long time. Yes, I have a crap load of excuses. Yes, I have had a long post planned for quite some time that I’ve started and haven’t finished. Yes, it is mostly due to laziness.

I do love to write, so I’m going to try to do it more. My approach (which has been a miserable failure thus far) has been to post really long posts few and far between. That hasn’t worked. I’m now going for the post-everyday-a-little-bit approach in the hopes that something will come out of it.

So, today I write about the San Diego Crew Classic. This is one of the premier regattas that are held every year and it attracts an elite national competitive field, fraught with ex-Olympians, national team members, college teams, and junior teams from all over the US. It is a 2K race held in San Diego’s Mission Bay and the race is limited entirely to 8+’s, no small boats allowed. This year, Rachel and I have our first chance to go to this great race. Each of us is really excited about it and we are both training our butts off for it. My team is sending five full boats, and Rachel’s team is sending about the same number. It is crazy! We have almost 80 people going to this race!

Like all things rowing, the training season has been filled with drama and heartache so far. People not getting in the boats they thought they deserved to be in, coaches not always being fair in their lineup selection, too many erg tests to count, and people getting generally annoyed at each other. But, despite all of this excess drama, all is going well and Rach and I are thrilled to be going. I’ll be rowing in the open category, which means that there is no age limit and no handicaps in the race. Age doesn’t matter. It also means that we’ll be racing against college crews and really young crews. I’m definitely the old man in this boat, but the people that I’m rowing with are phenomenal rowers and we’re bound to have a great time. I’m not going to speak to Rachel’s lineup, because it still hasn’t been set and there’s a whole lot of drama there that we don’t want to get into (drama that isn’t her fault).
Ok, that post sort of sucked, but at least it was a post! I’m going to get back to work now, but I’ll try to write again tomorrow (try is the operative word there). Happy Friday!